Secret dragging tricks and keyboard shortcuts - are these published anywhere?

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Level 2

227 points

Secret dragging tricks and keyboard shortcuts - are these published anywhere?

I have searched for some and stumbled upon others. But I have not seen any of these published or posted anywhere. If so, can you tell me? Either way, you may find some useful ones here. Enjoy! (I think most of these work in Lion. Any keyboard shortcuts you know for Time Machine would be most welcome.)

*** THE DOCK ***

Press ^F3 to move to the dock. Use the arrow keys to select an icon. You can also use autocomplete (type the first few letters of the icon's name). Then press Opt-arrow_key to move the *icon* among the other icons on the Dock. Thus you can change the order of the icons on the Dock using only the keyboard.

*** DRAGGING TRICKS ***

o SAVE-AS SHEET TRICK

Open an app's Save As sheet. Drag a folder or its proxy icon to anywhere in the Save As sheet except the sidebar and that updates the directory (folder) field with that folder. Drag a file or its proxy icon to the Save As sheet (anywhere except the sidebar) and that updates both the directory (folder) and file fields accordingly.

Why do I do this? I find it easier to use the actual Finder, or I may already have a Finder window in the right directory.

You can also click on a directory or file in the Save As sheet to populate the directory or file fields, respectively. Then edit the filename to a slightly different name.

o COPY A FOLDER TREE TO A TEXT DOCUMENT

Open a true text-only editor session using an app like TextWrangler (not TextEdit!). Drag a folder (or its proxy icon) from the Finder into the editor window. Viola`! The names of the folder and all its subfolders and files are pasted into the text buffer in a properly indented form.

o COPY A FILE TO A TEXT DOCUMENT

Drag a file from the Finder into a text-only editor like TextWrangler or similar (not TextEdit!) and the _contents_ of the file (not its icon) are inserted into the document.

o MAKE A NEW FILE THAT CONTAINS SELECTED TEXT

Select some text. Drag it to a folder. This creates a "textClipping" file which contains the selected text. Opens as a "Finder document".

o COPY A PHOTO FROM IPHOTO TO A FOLDER

Open iPhoto. Drag (to copy) a photo to a folder. Makes a jpeg file of the photo in that folder.

*** KEYBOARD TRICKS ***

o MENUS AND LISTS

Opt-U/D: Move highlight bar to top or bottom of most menus and lists. Does not work in Spotlight drop-down menu. Works in Snow Leopard Mac Mail (v 4.5, anyway) if you hold it down for a second: you get an error signal, but it works anyway.

PgUp/PgDn | Home/End: Moves highlight bar to top or bottom of menus. Moves only the view for lists.

Opt-Spacebar: Move highlight to the alphabetically first item in a menu (except in the Spotlight drop-down menu).

o SPOTLIGHT DROP-DOWN MENU

After selecting an item on the drop-down menu via the arrow keys:

Cmd-Return: Open enclosing folder.

o SPOTLIGHT WINDOW

If ^F7 is set to "all controls", press ^F7 four times if it's the first search in a particular Spotlight window; two, otherwise. This moves you to the list of results.

If ^F7 is set to "text boxes and lists only", just Tab.

o CALENDAR WIDGET

Home: go to the current year and month.

Up, down, left, right arrows: go one year back, one year forward, one month back, one month forward. Hold a L or R arrow down to autorepeat through the years. (You can't do _that_ with the mouse!) Also works with U and D for the months.

o SPELL CHECK

Cmd-Shift-; - Open spelling pane. But you knew that one. Press ^F6 to get to the pane. Tab around to everything except Define and Guess. With the focus on the replacements list, use the arrow keys to select a replacement word from the list. (Press the spacebar to run the control with the highlight perimiter and press Return to run the control with the solid highlighting.)

o MAIL

Cmd-I - Open Account Info window

o NAVIGATING HELP PANES

- Old-style help panes :

Open the menu pane in the usual way. The Highlight perimeter will be on the search window.

Tab: Move among the Search field, the page, and the controls on top. Add Shift to reverse.

When on the page:

Use the usual navigation keys -- Up, Down, Home, End, Page up, and Page Down, Spacebar, Shift-Spacebar -- to scroll through the page.

Opt-Tab: move among the links on the page or items in a "Help Topics" list. The highlight perimeter will be rectangular. Press Return or Enter to click the selected link or item. Add Shift to reverse direction.

Cmd-F: Open the Find bar. Move about with Tab. Move among the arrows with L or R arrow keys. To find a string: Type your search string in the Find field. Press Return or Enter. Press again to find the next occurrence, etc.

To go to the page from the Find bar: Shift-Tab to the left or right arrow. Then press Shift-Tab two more times.

To close the Find bar: Tab to Done and press the spacebar or just press Escape.

You can return to the app via ^F6, but the help pane stays open.

When the highlight perimeter is on one of the arrow controls, press Spacebar to click it. If the left arrow control is selected press the down arrow to see places going backward. If the right arrow control is selected press the Down arrow to see a list of places going forward. Either way, use the usual menu navigational shortcuts.

When the highlight perimeter is on the Home control, press the down arrow to get a menu of apps. (The mouse way for this is to click and hold and "drag" and release as above.) The usual menu navigational shortcuts are valid. Also, you can press the spacebar to go Home.

When the highlight perimeter is on the Gear button, press the spacebar or down arrow to get the drop-down menu. The usual menu navigational shortcuts are in effect.

(To do any of the above three with the mouse, click on the control and hold the mouse button down, then without releasing the mouse button, move the pointer to highlight the desired item on the menu and release the mouse button.)

- New-style help panes:

Open the menu pane in the usual way. The Highlight perimeter will be on the search window.

Tab to move around to most things. The table of contents becomes keyboard-active one Tab-press past the Search field, at which point use the L and R arrow keys to navigate the Contents panel, and the U and D arrow keys to move the down and up the page.

To be able to use PageUp and PageDn, Tab to the back/forward button, then press Shift-Opt-Tab.

Cmd-F: Opens the Find bar. Navigate with Tab and L/R arrow keys. When you are on this bar, press Shift-Tab repeatedly until the highlight perimeter moves out. Then press Shift-Tab once more to go back to the page, where the L and R arrow keys move you around the TOC sidebar and the U and D arrow keys scroll the page.

AFAIK, you can choose Get Started or Browse Help only with the mouse.

You can return to the app via ^F6, but the help pane stays open.

AEF

20, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jan 2, 2012 5:14 PM

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Answer 1

betaneptune Author

Level 2

227 points

Jan 2, 2012 5:17 PM in response to betaneptune

P.S. I use the terms "folder" and "directory" interchangeably. They are the same thing. --AEF

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Answer 2

fane_j

Level 4

3,704 points

Jan 3, 2012 3:43 AM in response to betaneptune

betaneptune wrote:

I have not seen any of these published or posted anywhere.

Your work is impressive. Unfortunately...

Apple KB article HT1343 "Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts"

<http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343>

Appendix: The Master Mac OS X Secret Keystroke List, in David Pogue (2009) "Mac OS X Snow Leopard: The Missing Manual"

<http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596153298.do>

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Answer 3

betaneptune Author

Level 2

227 points

Jan 3, 2012 7:08 PM in response to fane_j

Greetings,

Sorry about the awkward phrasing in my original post. Basically I'd like to know if these tricks are published anywhere.

fane_j wrote:

betaneptune wrote:

I have not seen any of these published or posted anywhere.

Your work is impressive.

Thanks!

fane_j wrote:

[...]

Unfortunately...

Apple KB article HT1343 "Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts"

<http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343>

Appendix: The Master Mac OS X Secret Keystroke List, in David Pogue (2009) "Mac OS X Snow Leopard: The Missing Manual"

<http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596153298.do>

I guess you meant that unfortunately these don't have them. But why did you mention them at all? There are many others, and they don't have them, either!

So why does Apple put in these nifty things and then not tell us? (BTW, this phenomenon is not limited to Apple, of course.)

The trick of dragging a file into a text document doesn't work unless the file itself is a text file.

Dragging text to the Finder to create a "textClipping" works even if the text is from a non-text file, like a like a PDF file, for instance. And it can be an entire page, even.

The Menus and Lists section: Lists include the list of files in Finder in list mode, column mode, and cover mode (Cmd-2,3, and 4, respectively).

The keyboard shortcuts for the new-style Help panes work, but they're a bit of a pain, awkward, and inefficient.

If anyone knows a keyboard shortcut to get to and from the sidebar in Finder, please post it!

AEF

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Answer 4

fane_j

Level 4

3,704 points

Jan 4, 2012 1:38 AM in response to betaneptune

betaneptune wrote:

I guess you meant that unfortunately these don't have them.

(1) I meant that, unfortunately for your impressive work, there's nothing in it that hasn't already been documented elsewhere. The two items I mentioned contain your shortcuts, and many more besides.

(2) Mac OS X v10.6 has been out for, what is it, 3 years? If you think that there are any 'secret' shortcuts left, then you seriously underestimate the average Mac user. Some of that stuff is even older. For instance, the "Save-As Sheet Trick" dates back to Jaguar, or even before that. "Make a New File That Contains Selected Text" is older than Mac OS X itself!

(3) Also unfortunately, your listing mixes up shortcuts and 'tricks' of different categories. For instance, "Copy a File to a Text Document" is not secret, it is not a trick, and it is not relevant. What an app does with a file dropped onto an open document of its own does not depend on the system, but on the app and how it was programmed. TextEdit inserts a text file's path while TextWrangler inserts the text file's contents not because the former is not a text editor, but because that's how each was designed to work. And TextWrangler's behaviour is documented in the accompanying manual.

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Answer 5

betaneptune Author

Level 2

227 points

Jan 4, 2012 5:13 PM in response to fane_j

fane_j wrote:

Pardon me if I screwed up the quoting.

betaneptune wrote:

I guess you meant that unfortunately these don't have them.

(1) I meant that, unfortunately for your impressive work, there's nothing in it that hasn't already been documented elsewhere. The two items I mentioned contain your shortcuts, and many more besides.

I don't see any of them in either. I have Pogue's book and they're not there. In fact, I emailed these tricks to him and he was impressed with some of them. And of course there are more. I never claimed to have an exhaustive list. In fact, I doubt anyone has such a list.

(2) Mac OS X v10.6 has been out for, what is it, 3 years? If you think that there are any 'secret' shortcuts left, then you seriously underestimate the average Mac user. Some of that stuff is even older. For instance, the "Save-As Sheet Trick" dates back to Jaguar, or even before that. "Make a New File That Contains Selected Text" is older than Mac OS X itself!

Well, first of all there's no need to get hostile.

I don't underestimate the average Mac user. But I would venture to guess that most are heavily mouse oriented and would not even be interested in the keyboard tricks I posted. And I only said that I haven't seen them on any website, not that no one else in the world knows about them.

Additionally, there have been things missed by the smartest of people. Stereo vision was missed even by Issac Newton, one of the biggest geniuses to grace the planet! It was Wheatstone who first picked up on it. And it used to be thought that a cube flying by at relatvisitic speed would appear foreshortened in the direction of motion. In fact, as was noted decades after relativity was published, it in fact appears rotated. If super smart people could miss this, then perhaps those few who publish these tricks may not know about them.

Re the save-as trick and the new-file-contains-your-text tricks: fine, they're old, but so are many of the tricks that are posted on websites. So why some old ones but not others? How about cut and paste? I bet they're pretty old but that doesn't prevent people from posting them, as in your first reference!

(3) Also unfortunately, your listing mixes up shortcuts and 'tricks' of different categories. For instance, "Copy a File to a Text Document" is not secret, it is not a trick, and it is not relevant. What an app does with a file dropped onto an open document of its own does not depend on the system, but on the app and how it was programmed. TextEdit inserts a text file's path while TextWrangler inserts the text file's contents not because the former is not a text editor, but because that's how each was designed to work. And TextWrangler's behaviour is documented in the accompanying manual.

So one of my tricks is lame. I don't see that as that big a deal.

Bottom line: I don't see any of them in the docs you referenced.

AEF

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Answer 6

fane_j

Level 4

3,704 points

Jan 4, 2012 7:56 PM in response to betaneptune

betaneptune wrote:

fane_j wrote:

Pardon me if I screwed up the quoting.

I never wrote, "Pardon me if I screwed up the quoting" in my life.

Bottom line: I don't see any of them in the docs you referenced.

betaneptune: "Press ^F3 to move to the dock."
Apple KB article HT1343:

Control-F3

Move focus to the Dock

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Answer 7

betaneptune Author

Level 2

227 points

Jan 5, 2012 2:33 AM in response to fane_j

What about using Opt-arrow_key to move an icon to a different place in the Dock? I just put down ^F3 because you have to do that *before* you press Opt-arrow_key. I don't see any Opt-arrow in your references!

I said I screwed up the quoting. It came out "reversed." Sorry about that.

So how do you work the quoting? If I click the quotation mark, it quotes you, but it gives me a place to type that comes out one level deeper instead of "shallower"!

AEF

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